A few things started clicking into place, and he seemed to follow the train of my thoughts.
“I stole the clothes from the stable boy and a horse from your father. I rode back to where the army was camped, realizing that I’d almost died. Had it not been for you, I would have. I came back to find you, convinced you could heal me. When I realized who you were, and that you were unable to speak, I simply reacted, killing two birds with one stone, as they say. Your father has been plotting my death for as long as I’ve been alive. It was sweet justice that his daughter could save me.”
But I can’t.
“No. You can’t heal me from this. You comfort me. You help ease the agony, but you can’t heal me.”
I can’t heal what isn’t broken.
His eyes widened, and he took another step toward me. I wasn’t sure where my sentiment originated, but it seemed to stun him.
“I feel broken,” he confessed bleakly. Then he shook himself and squared his shoulders, readjusting his cloak of superiority.
“Changing used to be something I could control. I would feel it happening, and through will alone, I could beat it back. But in the last year it has become painful—resisting the change—and I give into it more than I used to. I don’t feel as much pressure to change in the daylight hours, though I can whenever I need to. I can when I am poisoned by plotting lords.”
I remembered him collapsing in the hallway. When you don’t resist . . . does it hurt?
“There is some pain, but it is fleeting, like the stretching of stiff limbs or the flexing of sore muscles. The second time you came to help me, it was overpowering, and I changed before you arrived in my room. When dawn broke, I thought you would see me, that you would see me become a man again. But Kjell heard my call and intervened.”
But you were sick . . . after.
Tiras nodded. “I had to fight to change back. For the first time ever, the sun rose and I didn’t become a man again. When I finally did, I was sick.”
Have you always been able to change? I’d never known anyone else who could change. Or maybe everyone just pretended to be normal.
“The night after your mother died, I changed for the first time. It was as if she recognized it in me. She knew.”
You will lose your son to the sky.
The prediction took on a whole new significance, and Tiras nodded as if he heard the words echoing in my memory.
“For several years it was a rare occurrence, and I grew accustomed to it. I almost convinced myself I was dreaming, though that became impossible after a while. It happened so infrequently, I believed I could hide it . . . from everyone.”
I couldn’t believe he wasn’t hiding it from me. He continued without pause.
“Kjell was the first to find out. Then my father. I hid myself here, in this cottage for a month, afraid of what he’d do. I’d seen firsthand how the Gifted were treated. I thought he would kill me. But my father died instead, not long after. And I became king.”
Why are you telling me this?
My voice sounded sharp in my head, whistling between my ears, and I wasn’t the only one to wince.
“I want you to understand, and I don’t want you to feel alone.” His voice was gruff, as if it made him uncomfortable to be kind.
And you want me to come with you to Kilmorda. You want me to help you. I thought of the conversation I’d overheard between him and Kjell.
He had the grace—or the arrogance—not to deny it.
“You can do so much more than move haystacks and scale walls.”
My eyes snapped to his, and his mouth quirked. “I saw you. Being a bird has its advantages.”
The thought made me sad, as if I’d been betrayed by a friend.
“If you run, Lark, I will bring you back. I need you,” he said without apology. “Jeru needs you.”
I need you. The words were so seductive. So tempting. I need you. No one had ever needed me before. So why did I feel so bereft that this king simply had need of me, nothing more?
I have always wanted to be of use, I admitted. He waited, clearly feeling the words I wasn’t saying. But when I didn’t give voice to them, he nodded, dismissing the questions in the air.
“Then you will come with me,” he said, brooking no argument. I sighed, and he immediately tensed. But I nodded, giving in.
I will come with you.
True to his word, Tiras and his army left for Kilmorda that very day, and true to mine, I left with them. The lords and their retinues left as well, heading away from Jeru toward their own provinces, to await the news of his failure or success. Lady Ariel of Firi—her father, the Lord of Firi, who was too ill to travel and had sent her in his stead—rode with us for a full day, talking gaily to Kjell as if we were heading to a celebration instead of war. She watched me curiously, and I felt her questions but refused to expose my ability to answer them. Firi was west of Kilmorda, and the region had taken the brunt of the influx of refugees from the besieged province. Lady Firi and her guard would part ways with us at the fork, but she seemed to enjoy the protection of the army and the attention of Kjell and the king while it lasted.
Does she want to be queen? I asked Tiras, breaking the companionable silence between us.
He grunted in response, though the sound lifted on the end like he didn’t know who I was talking about.
Lady Firi. Does she want to be queen?
“Most likely,” he answered.
I almost laughed at his conceit, though I was certain he was right.
Kjell is in love with her.
“I doubt it is love. But he is taken with her,” he admitted. “So she will never be queen.”